1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a service ordering providing system, an image reading device, an information processing device, a service ordering method, and a program, and more specifically, it relates to a service ordering providing system comprising an image reading device and information processing device and service providing device that are each connected via a network, an image reading device and information processing device that make up this service ordering providing system, a service ordering method applied to the aforementioned service ordering providing system, and a program for executing this service ordering method on a computer.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventionally, in the case of using a printing service provided on the Internet, a Web browser is started on a client terminal such as a PC (Personal Computer), a Web server which, is a printing service providing device on the Internet, is accessed, and the documents to be printed are sent to this Web server as the order for printing (for example, see Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 11-007365).
However, using the above conventional method, two operations have been necessary, namely an image reading device reading an original document (hereafter may be simply referred to as “document”) on a sheet and the read electronic data being sent to the PC of the user, and the electronic data being sent from the PC to the Web server, causing additional work.
Further, identical read electronic data is sent over the network twice, from the image reading device to the PC and from the PC to the Web server, and therefore a greater burden is placed on the network, and further, the time required to send these transmissions or the waiting time of the user becomes longer.
Now, in order to avoid sending identical data over the network twice, a solution can be conceived such as directly sending the read image data from the image reading device to the Web server, but this poses the following problems:
1) an image reading device is a device shared by multiple users, and therefore provides an operation screen shared by multiple users, and has less functional operability as compared to sending electronic data from the PC of an individual; and
2) the operation screen of an image reading device is smaller compared to that of a PC, and because it almost always has no keyboard or pointing device (mouse), the operability of accessing a Web server on the Internet using the operating unit of the image reading device is less functional when compared to accessing the Web server using a PC.